E-Paper
Oil firms find foreign fields slippery
It was a year of missed opportunities and going back on reforms for India's oil sector which faced the heat of oil prices.
It was a year of missed opportunities and going back on reforms for India's oil sector which came under severe strain from international oil prices shooting to record highs and flamboyant domestic firms running out of luck in pursuit of oil and gas at home and abroad.
Administered pricing for auto fuels was back as the Government showed little innovation in dealing with the spurt in international oil prices that touched $56 a barrel. The diplomat-turned politician Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar saw more merit in reversing two-year-old free pricing policy for petrol and diesel and sought two-year extension of the subsidy regime on LPG and kerosene that was to end in March 2005.
Aiyar, a person known to have his way with words, failed to charm oil-rich nations into giving the 70 per cent import dependent nation any significant oil and gas property in 2004.
